Roman council hall in Laodicea yields early Christian symbols tied to Book of Revelation

Archaeologists working at the ancient city of Laodicea in western Turkey have uncovered Christian symbols carved into a Roman council hall that dates to about 50 B.C., a find researchers say connects the site to early Christian communities addressed in the New Testament’s Book of Revelation.

Excavators identified a cross and a Chi‑Rho monogram — the Greek letters Chi and Rho, used as an early abbreviation for "Christ" — on the walls of the bouleuterion, a civic building used for meetings of city councils, legal proceedings and other public functions. The structure, capable of seating roughly 800 people, also yielded a headless statue of Emperor Trajan and stone benches bearing inscriptions of civic roles such as council members, elders, youths and ordinary citizens.

The bouleuterion’s construction has been dated to the late Hellenistic period under Roman influence, around 50 B.C. Archaeologists caution that the Christian symbols were likely added centuries later, after the building’s erection, because Christianity and the crucifixion of Jesus postdate the hall. Based on stylistic and contextual evidence, researchers place the addition of the symbols plausibly between the second and fourth centuries A.D., a period in which Christian communities expanded in Anatolia despite intermittent persecution.

The find strengthens the identification of Laodicea as one of the seven churches singled out in Revelation. The apocalyptic book, generally dated by scholars to about A.D. 90–100 and attributed to John, contains messages to seven communities in Asia Minor, including Laodicea, and warns the Laodiceans of being "lukewarm" in faith (Revelation 3:14–22). Earlier New Testament references also associate Laodicea with early Christian activity; the Epistle to the Colossians mentions Epaphras, a disciple of Paul, as having ties to the Laodicean church.

The bouleuterion’s inscriptions provide additional evidence of Laodicea’s role as a significant local administrative center during Roman rule. The engraved seating designations point to a formally organized civic body that integrated different social groups into municipal governance. The presence of an imperial statue, even in its damaged state, underscores the city’s political ties to Rome; Emperor Trajan reigned from A.D. 98 to 117 and is known for consolidating Rome’s administration in Asia Minor.

Roman control in the region is traceable from roughly 133 B.C. until Laodicea’s decline in the seventh century A.D., a span of nearly nine centuries in which the city experienced shifts in political authority and religious composition. The Edict of Milan in A.D. 313, which granted Christians the right to worship openly, likely accelerated the public display of Christian symbols such as the Chi‑Rho, but carved symbols and informal signs of Christian presence also appear earlier in the archaeological record where communities were active.

Archaeologists emphasize that the discovery is material evidence linking textual references to physical space: inscriptions and symbols within a civic building used for public life illuminate how Christianity intersected with urban institutions. The findings add to a growing corpus of artifacts that document Christianity’s spread in Anatolia and the ways believers repurposed or marked civic spaces as the religion moved from a persecuted sect to an imperial faith.

Excavation leaders said further analysis, including stratigraphic study and comparative dating of the carved symbols, is under way to refine the chronology of when the Christian markings were added. The site at Laodicea continues to yield artifacts that inform understanding of the social, political and religious transformations that shaped the eastern Mediterranean from the late Hellenistic era through the Roman and early Byzantine periods.